STOP PRESS : President Obama's address to the South Slavs

"This campaign can't only be about me. It must be about you - it must be about what you in the Balkans can do together. This campaign must be the occasion, the vehicle, of your hopes, and your dreams. It will take your time, your energy, and your advice - to push us forward when we're doing right, and to let us know when we're not. This campaign has to be about reclaiming the meaning of citizenship, restoring your sense of common purpose, and realizing that few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of Slavic peoples in the Balkans.

Working separately on your own, this change will not happen. Divided, you are bound to fail.

You Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Montenegrins need power of conviction.

That beneath all the superficial differences of region and faith you are one people.

Believe me there is power in hope.

As Tito organized the multi-ethnic forces against fascist slavery, he was heard to say: "Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, you gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought to battle through."

That is your purpose to transform your nation.

I want you to win that next battle - for justice and opportunity.

I want you to win that next battle - for peace, for the crime-free Balkans, for better schools, better jobs, and health care for all.

I want you to take up the unfinished business of perfecting your union, and building a new and better democratic, prosperous and civilized Yugoslavia.

And if you will join your hands in this improbable quest, if you feel destiny calling, and see as I see, a future of endless possibility stretching before you in the United Europe; if you sense, as I sense, that the time is now to shake off your slumber, and slough off your fear of one another, and make good on the debt you owe past and future generations.
The rest of the world is ready to support your the cause, and march with you, and work with you.

Together, starting today, let us finish the work that needs to be done, and usher in a new birth of freedom for South Slavic peoples on this Earth. "